Monday arrived with a full workload on Hal’s desk. It wasn’t until late afternoon when the office calmed down that he had some solitary time with nobody breathing over his shoulder. Hal logged into a secure Air Force web browser and enabled an extension to encrypt his activity. He navigated to the military website for Raytheon’s TransTalk — a language translation website developed to translate over two-hundred languages in real time. Hal clicked on Arabic to English translation and typed DARJIN. The response instantly popped up. NO RESULTS FOUND. He altered the spelling, trying again. DARJEN. Same reply. He tried other spelling variations, which were also kicked back. Hal then spotted Yarbo entering the room. He minimized the webpage, switching to his work screen before Yarbo could see. “I’ve got something for you.” Hal said. Handing him the external drive with the Yemen footage on it.
“Salud!” Yarbo said. Raising the drive like a toast. Notching the cut on Hal’s forearm. Hal had removed the dressing to not draw attention, but couldn’t hide the actual wound. “What’d you do, cut yourself opening the Geritol this morning?”
Hal mocked a laugh. “Something like that.”
Yarbo didn’t move. Waiting for the real answer.
“Caught myself with an arrow tip, cleaning my gear yesterday.”
Yarbo felt he wasn’t telling the truth, but not wanting to make a big deal of it he changed the subject. “That’s gotta’ hurt. Hey, thanks again for all that meat. I tried to give Rachel some, but she wouldn’t take it, so now I have a freezer full.”
“No problem.”
Yarbo raised the computer drive. “You’re getting this back next week— Ping pong tourney.”
Hal smiled. “Bring it on.”
The harsh New Mexico sun beat down on a man in work clothes, sunglasses and a tattered Seattle Mariners hat. He fought through a blast of wind and sand at a construction site, meeting up with two other men near a stack of lumber. A vinyl banner whipped in the wind, barely clinging to the new lumber. It read “Habitat for Humanity — Alamogordo, NM.” A rugged foreman in a hardhat and safety glasses approached, extending a hand. “Doug Allen?”
“Yes, sir,” the man in the Mariners hat and Ray-Bans said. “This is Charlie Cooper and Matt Stone.” The foreman shook the hands of all three men. Charlie was African-American and Matt was Asian-American. The trio were in their early thirties and in great shape, like they went to the gym before working construction every day.
“Frank Adams,” the foreman said. “They tell me you just wrapped up a build in Phoenix. You from there or Seattle?” Frank nodded to his Mariners cap.
“The Northwest and Sacramento actually,” Doug said, “but our last stop was Phoenix.”
“And you’re on some kind of Habitat tour?”
“That’s right. We’re old college buddies. We all did a build years ago in college and put a Habitat tour on our bucket list. It’s been great so far. We started in Seattle, then hit Sacramento, San Fran, LA, Phoenix, and we’ll keep goin’ all the way to Florida.”
“We’re glad to have you. It’s good to have some guys with experience on a build. Do you have a build preference?”
“No, sir,” Doug said.
“We can do it all.” Charlie said.
“Great!” Frank replied. “Why don’t I have Charlie and Matt head on over yonder where they’re pouring the foundation, and Doug, you can help me with the lumber. You ever use a table saw?”
“Yeah, was practically raised on one. My dad worked construction when I was growing up. I used to cut up all the wood I could! Built tree forts, dog houses and rafts.”
“That’ll work! Here— put these on,” Frank said. Taking his own safety goggles off and giving them to Doug. “Wouldn’t want you to ruin your shades.”
Doug smiled. Taking his sunglasses off. Revealing his true identity— Intelligence Officer Yuen Weng. Charlie and Matt were also undercover MSS operatives.
Hal waited for the last man to leave the office for the night, resuming his translation search. The TransTalk denied his new spelling again. He tried breaking the word up into two words, then three. Both times getting shut down. “NO MATCHING TRANSLATIONS.”
Hal gave up on TransTalk, giving traditional search engines a shot. He searched PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION sites and tried the first one on the list. It came up empty. He tried different syllables, thinking he may have misheard it from his vision. And finally received a reply: Do you mean DARAR? He clicked it and a translation returned. Although not exactly what he was looking for as it was in Arabic characters. He copy-and-pasted it to a document and repeated the process with the second syllable of the word, JIN. It returned a word in Arabic characters. Hal copy and pasted it beside the first one,ضرر جنّ.
Hal returned to the TransTalk page and pasted the Arabic combination into the search field of the Arabic to English translator. The translation that came back repelled him from the computer screen. He eased back into his chair. Baffled. He pondered the translation, wondering if it was even accurate. Questioning if he typed in the correct phonetic spelling. And wondering why a man would scream it while blindly swinging a knife through the air.
The two words seemed permanently burned into the monitor. Hal wondered if they would still be there if he closed the browser. Why would he yell that at me? Hal thought.
Hal couldn’t take his eyes off the computer. He didn’t know what to do next. He wondered if shutting down the computer would make him forget all about it. He moved the cursor to the shut-down. Staring at the translation… Your entry ضرر جنّtranslates to EVIL SPIRIT.
A weathered wooden door opened, revealing the steely eyes and cracked leathery face of an older rancher in a cowboy hat. Dale Barrett.
“It’s not much,” Barrett said, leading Weng and his “college buddies” in. “Just your average, everyday ranch-hand bunkhouse. It’s got a kitchen, fridge and stove. Four racks on the loft. Shower and shitter out back, and it’s got cable TV piped in from the main house.”
He led them to an upstairs loft, which featured two sets of pine, man-sized bunk beds. A row of windows faced the desert scrub of his ranch.
“You can join us at the house for breakfast and dinner. It’ll be a treat for the old lady. She ain’t cooked for guests since the kids grow’d up and left some ten-twelve years ago. We eat at six and seven, am and pm. Or you can do your own thing here. No skin off my nose. How long y’all in town for anyway?”
“A month,” Weng answered. “Two at the most. We’re happy to pay whatever rent you ask, sir.”
Barrett waved it off. “That build you’re workin’ on’s helpin’ out some folks in need, so long as you boys are workin’ there, you’re welcome at the Barrett Ranch—” The roar of an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter took off nearby, drowning out his voice.
Weng looked out the window. “What was that?”
“Hell, that’s the best damned jet fighter in the world! Them Air Force boys call that the Lightning Two. F-35. Those stealth fighters and bombers fly in and outta’ Holloman day n’ night.”
“Sweet.” Weng said. “I’ve never seen one in person before.”
“Runway’s just a quarter mile that way,” the rancher said. “Fenced off a’course, but you can see it lit up at night.”
“Who knew there was an Air Force base here?” Charlie asked. Also peering up at the F-35 as it disappeared into the blue.
“That ain’t even the tip of the iceberg.” Barrett said. “Up north’s the White Sands missile range and the site of Trinity, where they tested the first atom bomb. Got this ranch as a steal because of it!” He cackled the laugh of a working man with dry and dusty lungs. “Everyone was afraid it’d be infected with radiation. We had it checked out and it’s fine. No more radiation than the Sahara Desert. So, whaddaya’ say? This ol’ bunkhouse good enough for you city slickers?”